Hello, again! This will be the last post before we do the real thing with our lander, who we officially name, Hope. For this post, I will be looking more into and explaining more about the science of our project. After all, this is for science class overall. In my first post about this project, I didn't really go into detail...so, I figured I should do it for this post! If you want to check out the first, detailed post about my project go to www.taism19conchita.blogspot.com, where there is more info! This post is exactly the same as the post on my other blog which is titled "Team X Status Report #2". But to read number one, you'll have to go my my other blog! Alrighty! Here we go...
Air resistance, which is important to Hope, is a 'drag'. "It is the force of friction with the air, that slows down motion." My teacher says.
The way air resistance importantly plays into our lander is that without it, our lander will not work well. Because, air resistance is what slows down the fall of our lander, which helps to lessen the impact of it when it hits the ground. Our parachute might not be the biggest parachute you can find on a lander but, it still needs to push against more air as it drops. Which means air resistance is greater and it will help our lander to drop more slowly. And that is how air resistance plays a part to our lander drop.
To cushion the impact of Hope when she hits the ground, as a group we decided to shove half of the trash bag we had cut off from our parachute to the bottom of our cone. We make sure that the half of the trash bag is securely shoved in the bottom of the cone until it is tight and does not have a squishy feeling to it. Also, to slow down the speed of our impact, we built a parachute. That does its functions very well. It is a very small parachute compared to our classmates but, we believe that it works just as good as theirs.
The things that have gone well and stayed until now while building Hope, is Hope's main body part, the cone. When we all first thought about making a cone-shaped lander, we were nervous. But surprise, surprise! Lots of our classmates made a similar cone-shaped lander, too! We think that making a cone-shaped lander was a success because of how secure and protective it is. I don't know if I could call this a success or not...but let's see! With our money budget, we had to be careful about the things we buy with it. So, we had to buy two strips of tape and we were successful in being wise and careful as to where we should stick it on. We spread it out evenly and in the places where we needed it to be. The last thing that has gone well is that we are very happy that we decided to cut the big trash bag evenly in half. One for the parachute and the other for cushioning the impact of Hope's fall. First of all, it helps us save our money and second of all, it helped our lander in two different ways!
And now to reverse the topic, what things have gone bad? No. What things that have gone bad but, have now been changed. Better. The first things that we have changed is the shape of our parachute. Instead of having an open parachute, we taped the sides of the trash bag to for a type of air balloon. When we closed it, we realized that it worked way better because having the sides taped, meant that their would be more air to be pushed against and to trap more air that way. When there is more air to be pushed against, the speed of the fall will decrease. We have also changed the length of our pipe cleaners which attach the parachute to the body of our lander. We have seen a significant change from that, too. Having the attachment longer helped our lander to slow down even more. We had a specific place of where exactly we wanted to put the "cushioning" inside of the cone. The "cushioning" consists of pipe cleaners. We changed the order a lot but, have now found the right place(s) for the pipe cleaners. In the process, we thought about making some type of stand, which did not work. Sadly. We already bought the materials and we didn't want to waste it. Thankfully, we came up with an idea to make a "cage" around the egg from the outside. We don't know if it will work, but we like to think of it as our egg's armor.
We will be testing these for real on Sunday, next week! I am really excited to watch the fellow landers and Hope! My hope for Hope is that she will successfully land on planet Mars safely. But that's just my hope. My predictions, though, is that the egg..will crack a bit? I don't know. After all those days, having Hope test falling with a golf ball instead of an egg, I always hear a painful, big thump when she lands. I am confident about Hope but, I am also a little bit nervous. Well, let's see next week! Will Hope make it safely and successfully on planet Mars? Or will she...find out next week!
Check out the new photos below! Today I wore my favorite accessory to school, my cat ears that I got from Claires'! I love them!
We will be testing these for real on Sunday, next week! I am really excited to watch the fellow landers and Hope! My hope for Hope is that she will successfully land on planet Mars safely. But that's just my hope. My predictions, though, is that the egg..will crack a bit? I don't know. After all those days, having Hope test falling with a golf ball instead of an egg, I always hear a painful, big thump when she lands. I am confident about Hope but, I am also a little bit nervous. Well, let's see next week! Will Hope make it safely and successfully on planet Mars? Or will she...find out next week!
Check out the new photos below! Today I wore my favorite accessory to school, my cat ears that I got from Claires'! I love them!
A masterpiece of Hope by our lovely, Kira.